TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The 38-year-old man who was bitten in the face by a shark at New Smyrna Beach on Tuesday is speaking out.
NBC affiliate WESH spoke to the South Carolina man, Mark Sumersett, on his painful encounter with the shark while surfing.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve probably ever been through in my life. I’ve been in bad car accidents. Nothing like this,” Sumersett said.
Sumersett told WESH he didn’t see the shark when he was bit while surfing. But it was obvious that this was a face-to-face encounter.
The shark took a chunk out of the right side of his face which required around 20 stitches.
“It was pressure, and I’ll tell you that pressure, it was like a crunch,” he told WESH. “I heard the crunch. It felt like a bear trap crunching on my face.”
Sumersett even admitted that he had a strange feeling he was going to get bit due to the number of sharks he saw the day prior.
The man said the shark had bit and released him immediately, but he was afraid the shark would come back to get him because he was bleeding profusely.
He suspects the gold chain he was wearing may have gotten the animal’s attention thinking it was food.
But as to if he will be back surfing again?
“Heck yeah, I’m going surfing again,” he said. “Because I love it. There’s nothing in the world that makes me feel better than surfing.”
